Spider-Man, To the Rescue
Point the protection at someone else and the whole thing snaps into focus. Flashing in at instant speed, this taps itself on entry to grant indestructible to a different nonattacking creature you control: a bodyguard that throws itself in front of the piece you actually care about. That targeting restriction is the balancing wrinkle. It cannot save an attacker, so it will not spring a Falter-style alpha strike; it protects the creature sitting back, the mana source, the value engine, the board you have already committed. The flash timing is where the leverage lives. Because it can wait in hand as untapped mana across an opponent's turn, it answers targeted removal on demand: cast in response, tap on the entry trigger, and the creature that matters shrugs off the damage or destroy effect. Note the limit against a board wipe, though: the indestructible lands on one other creature, so a 3/2 with no protection of its own dies to the same wrath it was cast to blunt. This is a shield for a single teammate, not for the whole team. Vigilance and reach round out a defensively minded frame, and the self-tap is a genuine cost, since a tapped body cannot block that same turn and the indestructible expires at cleanup. Closer to a protective instant that happens to leave a body behind than to a beater.
